


from out the boundless deep

by brinnanza



Series: crossing the bar [2]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Angst, Episode 4x7: XXXV, Episode Related, Grief, M/M, Oral Sex, canonical temporary/believed character death, gratuitous storm metaphors, it's when they think madi's dead, liiiitle bit of minor blood play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:13:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29944998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brinnanza/pseuds/brinnanza
Summary: Silver is unmoored, has been since Flint delivered the terrible news of Madi’s death. It has cast him into a roiling sea, left him at the mercy of the winds. The storm with destroy him if he lets it, will dash him against each new swell of grief until he is lost to it. Flint knows too well that tempest, had surrendered to it himself for a time, and he will not abandon Silver to its ravages.“Tell me what you need,” Flint says.
Relationships: Captain Flint | James McGraw/John Silver
Series: crossing the bar [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2202309
Comments: 1
Kudos: 22





	from out the boundless deep

**Author's Note:**

> hello I'm back with sad blowjobs 2: electric boogaloo feat. even more angst. seriously this is not smut it's just grief. this takes place somewhere in 4x7, the night after silver and flint talk in madi's house. this is technically a sequel to [too full for sound and foam](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29343879) so I've listed it as such, but I don't think you reeeeally need to read the first one first except to know that it involves another sad bj.
> 
> the title is once again from crossing the bar because that's a thing for this series now I guess. Thanks to jay for looking this over and general cheerleading.

It’s late when Silver finally comes to him. It’s long past midnight, and the camp is quiet save for the calls of night birds, the buzz of insects. Flint sits in anticipation of Silver’s arrival, a book in his lap and the lanterns still lit. They cast their glow beyond the edges of the hut, a light in the dark intended for one man. Silver’s knock is overloud when it comes, a resounding thud that briefly startles the surrounding forest into silence. Flint sets the book aside and bits Silver enter, opening the door for him without a word.

Even in the flickering yellow light, Flint can see that Silver’s eyes are rimmed in red, a spark of something wild in their depths. It continues in his very bearing, in the jerky way he steps into Flint’s hut. He’s trembling faintly despite the oppressive heat, and his hand is white-knuckled on his crutch as if it his only tether.

Silver is unmoored, has been since Flint delivered the terrible news of Madi’s death. It has cast him into a roiling sea, left him at the mercy of the winds. The storm with destroy him if he lets it, will dash him against each new swell of grief until he is lost to it. Flint knows too well that tempest, had surrendered to it himself for a time, and he will not abandon Silver to its ravages.

“Tell me what you need,” Flint says.

Silver closes his eyes, anguish knitting his brows and clenching his hands into fists. “I need to be somewhere else,” he whispers. His voice is rough with tears and overuse, the ragged quality that follows a primal scream of rage and grief. “She is the only thing in my head, and I can’t - I need to be somewhere else right now.”

“I can give that to you,” Flint murmurs. “Do you trust me?” Silver nods, meeting Flint’s gaze with wide, wet eyes. Flint knows exactly why Silver is here in the middle of the night, why he is empty handed and unsettled. It is more than just grief, more than just distraction. Silver will not ask for it, and Flint will not make him, but he knows. “Do you remember the night you became Long John Silver?”

“Yes,” Silver whispers. He reaches out, curling a hand around Flint’s head, where he might sink his fingers into hair that is no longer there. “ _Please_.” He pulls Flint forward until their lips meet, and Flint does not deny him. There is nothing he can deny Silver anymore, Flint knows, if Silver would but ask. He will reach inside his own chest, pluck out the tattered remains of his heart and place it next to Silver’s so that Silver might yet stand against the waves.

Silver bites at Flint’s lips, slides his tongue in alongside Flint’s in order to map every inch of his mouth. Silver is desperate for it, greedy, and Flint lets him take as he pleases. There is no soft exploration here, no tentative slide of lips. Silver means to drown himself in Flint’s touch, fill his lungs with it until he can no longer feel the sharp emptiness inside him where Madi had once lived. 

He is a poor substitute, Flint knows. He can never fill the spaces left in Silver now, not even if he lets Silver consume him, takes up residence inside his very bones to soothe the unbearable ache. Nothing will ever fit there again, no matter how much Silver tries to pack it full of skin and rum and purpose; he will feel those jagged edged with every breath until his last. It is a fiction, but it is the least Flint can give him. He can allow them both to pretend, for a little while at least, that there is some way to seal the yawning chasm closed once more.

Flint takes Silver’s biting kisses, his wandering hands, the bruising grip of his fingers, asks for nothing in return. He opens Silver’s trousers, and takes him in hand with slow strokes until Silver is mewling into his mouth, his kisses gone messy with arousal. Flint guides him down to sit on the edge of the bed and then kneels between his thighs, his intent clear.

“Christ,” Silver whispers, gazing down at Flint. There’s no blue in his eyes at all, just black and red and yellow reflecting the candles. His lips are smeared with red; Flint belatedly registers the sting in his own lip. He tongues the cut, tasting copper, and Silver’s eyes never leave his face. 

Flint rises up on his knees so he can brush his thumb across Silver’s lip, gathering the blood that lingers there. Before he can withdraw to wipe it away, Silver sucks Flint’s thumb into his mouth, laps at his skin with his tongue. He releases it a moment later and then cups Flint’s cheek in his hand, his own thumb drawn unerringly to the split in Flint’s lip. “Fuck, Captain, I--”

“Shh, I’ve got you,” Flint soothes. Whatever tenderness might spill from Silver’s lips isn’t meant for him, and Flint cannot bear to hear it delivered in earnest. He will see Silver through this, give him what he needs to carry on, but there are only so many untruths Flint can stand. “I’ve got you.”

There still isn’t time to make it last and very little in the way of privacy, even despite the hour, but Flint still works Silver slowly, drawing him gently toward his climax. He varies his rhythm, alternates suckling with broad laps of his tongue, anything to keep Silver’s mind here, on the sensation, instead of on a burnt out husk of a house filled with ghosts.

Flint is not foolish enough to think himself on Silver’s mind. He doubts Silver is thinking of much beyond the hot, wet suction of Flint’s mouth, and that is all Flint can hope to ask of him, even as he traces patterns with his tongue and says without words, _I’m here. I’m here_. Silver’s whining little cries, his desperate, breathy moans, the way his hips move in time with whatever rhythm Flint sets, none of this is for Flint. He is merely the vector for Silver’s physical pleasure, whatever he can scrape from the abyss of his grief. 

Knowing this does not extinguish the simmering heat of Flint’s own arousal, doesn’t soothe the sick, wet guilt slithering into his gut. _It is a fiction_ , he tells himself, and it does not silence the nigh insurmountable swell of his own desire. In the cold light of dawn, Silver will still be bereft, and Flint will still be unable to anything other than pretend.

Silver curls over Flint when he comes, bending nearly double with a punched out cry. Flint swallows, gentles Silver through it until he is spent and oversensitive. When he withdraws, he lets the tip of Silver’s cock brush over his split lip, relishing the renewed rush of pain. He is covered in scars of violence, bruises beaten into his own skin. Surely he is owed the memory of this, pain that doesn’t hurt when he revisits it.

The world is not nearly so kind. Flint sits back on his heels and lets Silver pull him into another messy kiss. Silver’s mouth is wet, his cheeks are wet, saltwater dripping into Flint’s beard and burning his lip. Silver tastes like the sea, like drowning, like smoke rising over a ruined city ravaged by grief.

Flint will be that city for Silver; he is already ruined for him.


End file.
